Children's Services

The trust has to collect lots of information about you and your parents or carers in order to make sure that we can make the right decisions about your care.

To do this your doctor and the team of health staff caring for you will keep records about your health and any care you receive from us. This is called your ‘Health Record’ and may be stored in a paper form or on computer systems. This may include:

• Basic details such as your name, address, date of birth, NHS number, gender, next of kin, and ethnicity
• Details of your hospital appointments/visits
• Notes and reports about your health, treatment and care
• Results of x-rays, scans and laboratory tests
• Other important information from people who care for you and know you well, such as health professionals and relatives

When you are receiving care, whether it be from a consultant, nurse, health visitor, school nurse, junior doctor or any other health care professional, they will ask you and your parents or carers for information about your health (this may be your current health and also how you have felt in the past). This is used by healthcare professionals to plan what care they need to provide you, and how to help.

We use your information to make decisions about your care. We make sure that we handle your data in a legal way and do not break the law by sharing your information with people that do not need it.

The legal reasons we use your information are:

• To make sure we provide you with the correct care
• To use your information (along with other patients’ information) to plan our services in the future
• To use to research and study information so we can learn and use what we have found to make things better
• To comply with the law – some information we need to collect to make sure that we act legally
• To use if we ever need to protect you or your parents or carers (called ‘Safeguarding’)

These include:

• NHS Trusts National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990
• NHS England’s powers to commission health services under the NHS Act 2006 or to delegate such powers
• 251B of the Health and Social Care Act 2012
• The Access to Health Records Act 1990
• General Data Protection Regulations 2018
• Carers (Service and Recognition) Act 1995
• The Children’s Act 2004
• The Education Act 2002

We may share information about you with the following agencies in order to support the delivery of your care:

• Department of Health and other NHS bodies
• Wolverhampton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)
• Wolverhampton City Council (Social Care Services)
• Wolverhampton Voluntary Sector Council (Social Prescribing Service)
• New Cross Hospital (RWT)
• General Practitioners (GP’s) who are part of the group of Practices vertically integrated with the Trust, should you choose to book into one of the extended access clinics at another location other than your usual Practice
• Ambulance Service
• Mental health services
• Social services
• Other national providers of health care who you choose to be referred to, in consultation with your healthcare professional
• An automated appointment reminder system for the provision of appointment and other relevant information via text message
• The Strategy Unit (Midlands and Lancashire CSU)
• GP practices part of the Unity Group limited (for the purposes of proving consultations out of normal working hours (under a contract with the Trust)

We collect your information in a number of ways:

Face to face:
This information will come from you and your parents or carers. Most information will be gathered when you come for an appointment (or we come to you), or you come to use the Paediatric Assessment Unit or our Emergency Services.

Telephone calls:
If you or your parents or carers tell us any information over the phone we may use some of this information and add it to your patient notes. We will tell you if we do this.

Emails:
If you or your parents or carers email us we may keep a record this and your email address for our record keeping.

Other departments:
If you were born at New Cross hospital, the Children’s Department get given information from our Maternity Services. If you are cared for by other doctors at our trust (for example a specific surgeon), information will be passed between doctors and staff to make sure that everyone is aware of what care you need.

Other organisations:
If you are referred by your GP, or another hospital, some of your information will also be on the referral letter that we receive (such as personal ‘demographic’ information, and information about the care that they think you may need).

If you and your parents or carers move into our area from outside of Wolverhampton, you will automatically come under our 0-19 Services which include Health Visitors, the Partnering Families Team and School Nurses. If this is the case, we will receive some of your information from your previous NHS Trust that cared for you. They may send this in the post or in an email.

The Data Protection Act 2018 provides individuals with many rights relating to how their data is processed by the Trust. Individuals absolutely have the right to access data held about them, and should apply to the Health Records Access Team  below. Other rights include rectification of inaccurate information, the right to be told about how information is used, the right to object to processing and the right to have their record restricted in certain situations.

If you are 13 or older and have the ability to understand what is happening (known as having ‘capacity’) you have the right to make decisions about your information. If a young person aged 13 to 16 wants to make a decision about their information, a doctor will let the trust know that you ‘have capacity’ to make that decision.

If you or your parents or carers would like to make an application or discuss any of your rights, please email  rwh-tr.healthrecordsaccess@nhs.net. We will try to reply to you within 30 days, but if your application is complicated, we may need to ask you for longer.

RWT is working in the health and care system to improve care for patients and the public.

Whenever you use a health or care service, such as attending Accident & Emergency or using Community Care services, important information about you is collected in a patient record for that service. Collecting this information helps to ensure you get the best possible care and treatment.

The information collected about you when you use these services can also be used and provided to other organisations for purposes beyond your individual care, for instance to help with:

• improving the quality and standards of care provided
• research into the development of new treatments
• preventing illness and diseases
• monitoring safety
• planning services

This may only take place when there is a clear legal basis to use this information. All these uses help to provide better health and care for you, your family and future generations. Confidential patient information about your health and care is only used like this where allowed by law.

Most of the time, anonymised data is used for research and planning so that you cannot be identified in which case your confidential patient information isn’t needed.

You have a choice about whether you want your confidential patient information to be used in this way. If you are happy with this use of information you do not need to do anything. If you do choose to opt out your confidential patient information will still be used to support your individual care. This is called the National Data Opt Out.

To find out more or to register your choice to opt out, please visit Your NHS Data Matters.

On this web page you will:

• See what is meant by confidential patient information
• Find examples of when confidential patient information is used for individual care and examples of when it is used for purposes beyond individual care
• Find out more about the benefits of sharing data
• Understand more about who uses the data
• Find out how your data is protected
• Be able to access the system to view, set or change your opt-out setting
• Find the contact telephone number if you want to know any more or to set/change your opt-out by phone
• See the situations where the opt-out will not apply

You can also find out more about how patient information is used at: HRA – Information About Patients (which covers health and care research); and Understanding Your Patient Data – What You Need to Know (which covers how and why patient information is used, the safeguards and how decisions are made).

You can change your mind about your choice at any time.

Data being used or shared for purposes beyond individual care does not include your data being shared with insurance companies or used for marketing purposes and data would only be used in this way with your specific agreement.

Health and care organisations have until 2020 to put systems and processes in place so they can be compliant with the national data opt-out and apply your choice to any confidential patient information they use or share for purposes beyond your individual care.

Our organisation is currently compliant with the national data opt-out policy.

You and your parents have the right to see or have copies of any information that we hold about you. You do not have to pay for this (unless you make a lot of requests or request a lot of extra information). This is called making a ‘Subject Access Request’

Subject Access Requests under GDPR rules (post 25 May 18) will be processed within 30 days. However, once our teams have established the volume of records requested there may be a requirement to extended this up to a further 2 months. We will contact you within 30 days should this be the case.

To request access to health records please complete a Subject Access Request form, link provided below, and forward on to:

Health Records Access Team
Health Records Library
Location B19
New Cross Hospital
Wednesfield Road
Wolverhampton
WV10 0QP

Email: rwh-tr.healthrecordsaccess@nhs.net
Telephone: 01902 307999 Extension 85544/85545/88093

Subject Access Request form (PDF, 171Kb)
Subject Access Request form (Word) (Word, 54Kb)

All our records are destroyed in accordance with the NHS Retention Schedule, which sets out the appropriate length of time each type of NHS records is retained. We do not keep your records for longer than necessary.

All records are destroyed confidentially once their retention period has been met, and the Trust has made the decision that the records are no longer required.

GP Patient Records are retained for 10 years after patient death. For more information please see the Record Management Code for Practice for Health and Social Care 2016, retention schedules

If you have any questions about your care or a complaint, please speak to the health professional with your care in the first instance.If this is not resolved to your satisfaction you can contact the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS).

Data Protection Officer (DPO): Raz Edwards
Email: rwh-tr.IG-Enquiries@nhs.net
Address: New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton Road, Heath Town, Wolverhampton WV10 0QP

The Data Protection Officer is a point of contact for advice and guidance in relation to your rights. The DPO is responsible for monitoring the Trusts compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2016 as any policies the Trust has in relation to the protection of personal data. The DPO shall perform their duties in an independent manner with due regard to the risk associated with processing operations, taking into account the nature, scope, context and purposes of processing.

If you have any concerns about how your information is being processed or any of the rights as detailed above, please contact the Trust in the first instance through:

Health Records Access Team
Health Records Library
Location B19
New Cross Hospital
Wolverhampton Road
Wolverhampton
WV10 0QP

Email: rwh-tr.healthrecordsaccess@nhs.net
Telephone: 01902 307999 Extension 85544/85545/88093

You also have a right to complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you feel the Trust has not responded effectively to any of the above.

Information Commissioners Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Website: Information Commissioner’s Office